Teacher's Guide Unnatural Creatures: Stories Chosen by Neil Gaiman

Teacher’s Guide Unnatural Creatures: Stories chosen by Neil Gaiman

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SYNOPSIS, THEMES AND WRITING STYLE

Unnatural Creatures collects Neil Gaiman’s favourite short stories featuring beasts from myth, fable and the imagination. From the griffin and the sunbird, to werewolves, manticores and a myriad more, this collection is a menagerie of the mind. The stories span more than a century, and are as varied in theme and style as the beasts themselves, but united by their shared innovative exploration of the imagination and the relationship between ‘unnatural creatures’ and humans.

COMPILER’S MOTIVATION

‘I loved my monsters,’ Neil Gaiman explains in his introduction to this collection. This fascination with unnatural creatures goes back to Gaiman’s childhood, when he loved visiting London’s Natural History Museum, a place packed with marvels from the real world. His curiosity as to why it didn’t have any unicorns, dragons or werewolves spawned a lifelong interest in creatures of the imagination, in creatures from impossible worlds, ‘because simply thinking about them,’ he says, ‘made the world a more magical place.’

In additional to this deep-rooted love of ‘unnatural creatures’, Neil Gaiman also supports 826DC, the literacy charity that will benefit from sales of this book. Cofounded by the writer Dave Eggers, 826DC is a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting students from 6–18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

COMPILER’S BACKGROUND

Born in Hampshire, UK, Neil Gaiman has written numerous highly acclaimed books for both children and adults. The L.A. Times has described his multi-million-selling graphic novel series Sandman as ‘the greatest epic in the history

1 of comic books’. Many of his books, including Coraline and Stardust, have been made into films. In 2011 he wrote The Doctor’s Wife episode of Doctor Who and appeared as himself in The Simpsons. Neil is the first author to have won both the Carnegie and Newbery Medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book. This novel was also the recipient of the UK’s Booktrust Prize for Teenage Fiction, the Locus Young Adult Award and the Hugo Best Novel Prize, and it was also shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration (the first time in thirty years that a book has made both medal shortlists). His groundbreaking picture books include The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, both illustrated by Dave McKean.

Please refer to the book for further information about the authors of the stories included in this volume.

STUDY NOTES FOR DISCUSSION

Unnatural creatures 1. ‘Where there is a monster, there is a miracle’ Ogden Nash. Why do you think Neil Gaiman quoted this in the introduction to Unnatural Creatures? What does it mean? How is it relevant to the stories featured in this anthology? Support your answer with reference to at least three of the stories.

2. Humans have been interested in ‘unnatural creatures’ for millennia, from ancient myths through to contemporary literature, films and games. Why do you think that is? What do they collectively symbolise? Do any of the characters in these short stories learn anything from their encounters with such creatures? If so, what?

The short story form 3. a) ‘A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it’ Edgar Allan Poe Do you agree with this principle of short story writing? Do all the short stories in this volume observe it?

3. b) Which three stories in this collection did you most enjoy and why? Consider what qualities make a good short story? What elements do short stories need to be ‘successful’?

3. c) ‘Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds’ Neil Gaiman Consider the following three stories and explain how each of the authors creates a sense of place. How do they create their story worlds? a) The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu b) The Flight of the Horse by Larry Niven c) The Griffin and the Minor Canon by Frank R. Stockton

Characterisation 4. Consider the following stories and explain how the authors build their characters. Pay particular attention to how different points of view are conveyed, and to how the authors give insight into the characters’ psychological and emotional states. a) Ozioma the Wicked by Nnedi Okorafor b) The Cockatoucan; or Great-Aunt Willoughby by E. Nesbit c) The Smile on the Face by Nalo Hopkinson

Pace and plot 5. Examine the pacing in the following stories. Consider how tension is created and how the plot moves along. Why might pace be considered especially important to short stories? a) Story one by Gahan Wilson b) Sunbird by Neil Gaiman c) The Sage of Theare by Diana Wynne Jones

Style 6. Select three stories and discuss their respective styles. What mood does each story have, and how has the writer created that mood? Do the stories belong to a particular genre? Is the writing style formal or informal? Does the author use a lot of dialogue? Does the author use a lot of imagery? Does the writing style vary according to when the story was written? Are any stories written in a deliberately archaic style? Why might the writer have done that? Does humour play an important role in any of them?

Creative Activities 1. Select one of the following excerpts as a starting point for your own short story: a) ‘Halfway down the cobbled street the grey man cried, “Halt!”’ (from Prismatica by Samuel R. Delany) Who is the grey man? Is he the protagonist of your story? If not, what is his relationship to your protagonist? Why does he cry “Halt”? Is he trying to stop someone from walking down the cobbled street, or is he walking down it himself? Where is this street? When is your story set? b) “The twelve trumpets screamed” (from The Manticore, the Mermaid, and Me by Megan Kurashige) Why do the trumpets scream? Who, or what, made them scream? Is it significant that there are twelve of them? Is this a normal event in your story world, or does it surprise/scare/annoy your characters? c) “I can’t have you staying in these woods” (from Gabriel Ernest by Saki)

Why doesn’t the speaker want the person/people being addressed to stay in the woods? Who is your protagonist – the person issuing the warning, or the person/people being spoken to? Despite this warning, does anyone stay in the woods? If so, why? What happens to them?

2. Research the following ‘unnatural creatures’ and select one as the basis for your own short story: a) boggart b) harpy c) chupacabra